


Take My Breath Away, Beautiful Dream

by wutthequiznack (birbsandemidogs04)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, artist!keith is canon so why not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2019-06-08 03:11:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15234060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/birbsandemidogs04/pseuds/wutthequiznack
Summary: Keith's only been drawing for a couple of years, and he is pretty good at it.He gets better at it almost instantly when he sees Lance's sketchable beauty.Or, the Artist!Keith AU because it's definitely canon now.





	1. Take My Breath Away...

Keith hasn’t been drawing long. He started when he was a little over fifteen, bored out of his mind at the Garrison. He’d doodle on any spare piece of paper on his desk, any blank bit of notebook. In the beginning, his doodles had been of objects around the room -- the chalkboard, a vase, a desk, a shoe. Overtime they’d evolved into what they are now -- sketches of people.

After dropping out of the Garrison, with really nothing to do, Keith would sometimes sit outside his shack and study still-life, a hand restlessly moving his pencil over paper. He has drawings of his speeder, the outside of his house -- the tiny hill that’s been a staple of his life for as long as he can remember -- the tree next to the house, his furniture… But as he began to discover the clues set by the blue lion, he would start to sketch what he believed it would look like -- side profiles of an animatronic mass of metal sculpted in the shape of a lion. Mythical beings now dotted his corkboard, they all went with the blue lion. That year spent at home broadened his perspective and his drawing potential.

He doesn’t get back into drawing until they’ve established a homely environment on the castleship. His sketchbook is forgotten at home, as he never thought he’d be leaving his shack for the last time that day. Coran somehow figures out that he draws -- probably from the mice, who know everything -- and one day he discreetly hands Keith a notebook, suggesting he “get cracking” immediately. Keith grins and takes it to his room, realizing only later that it automatically refills itself with paper at intervals.

Over the rest of his time at the castle, Keith doodles many things. When he feels like it he draws his teammates and the Alteans -- he has a few crude portraits of Allura, Coran and the mice, and more of the other paladins. He’s sketched Pidge, mostly sitting at computers, staring up at the screens with such intensity that he has to crease her face on paper and make her tongue stick out in concentration. He’s penciled Hunk, cooking in the galley, his hands high in the air as he tosses food in pans or huddled over Pidge’s shoulder as he gives her suggestions on her coding (not that she needs them). Shiro is a change -- he is a willing subject as he knows of Keith’s passion for drawing and will pose, sometimes seriously, his arms crossed and his face dark; sometimes normally, expressionless. Sometimes teasingly, with his tongue out, which makes Keith smile and laugh when he looks at the portraits again.

But overall, Lance is the one he draws the most. He never knows it, but Keith will sketch him whenever he can, always carrying around extra paper and a pen in his fanny packs. The fact is that Lance is an amazing subject -- his profile, sharp and outlined, is beautiful, and the clothes he wears always seem to complement that. No matter what Lance is wearing, he still appears radiant and light, and Keith’s eyes shine when he looks at him. In those rare moments of peace from the torment of being the subject of Lance’s holier-than-thou attitude and claims that they are rivals, in the silence after a battle and returning to the ship, Keith closes himself in at the other end of the room and pulls out his crinkled pieces of notebook paper. Often Lance will be resting, standing or sitting just watching the galaxy weave around the ship, his face relaxed but tired. Keith’s pen will dart across his paper, messy lines connecting to form a rough sketch and then smoothing them to curve Lance’s face into something soft. Afterward, Keith’s smile lingers as he tucks the paper, now folded, back into his pocket, making a note to hide it in his notebook later.

Sometimes he notices Lance during battles, in poses so breathtaking and yet so natural that he keeps the way Lance looks in his mind until he can get back and scribble it onto paper before he forgets. Sometimes he sits alone in his room with a piece of paper, drawing Lance’s face sporting expressions he hasn’t seen before -- smiling, eyebrows bowed and cheeks sprinkled with a dark crimson-coloured blush from laughter or something else altogether. He leans over his work and gets swept into it, imagines for a moment that this is how Lance will look at him someday. Then he shuts the drawing into his notebook and sighs because it will never be real -- the two-dimensional Lance on his page with his hair swept across his face will never be the real Lance he fights alongside. Although both are so gorgeous it’s almost a tragedy.

Then when he leaves Voltron for the Blades, he abandons drawing altogether to focus on his missions, forcefully ignores his emotions for the singular mantra that is _knowledge or death_. It is difficult and he finds himself drifting sometimes just thinking about his sketchbook and how much he craves drawing Lance again, drawing all of them again.

Then he meets Krolia and they go to the Quantum Abyss. During the two years he’s there, he doesn't draw much. Mostly he tells his mother about how he used to do it, a smile lighting up his face that Krolia cherishes.

“Why not continue?” she asks. “There’s no reason you can’t.”

Keith realizes she’s right, and his passion is reignited. He cuts the bark of an old tree into thin slices and forms a crude sort of paper onto which he sketches everything. Memories and stories and experiences blossom out of his head and he scribbles madly to get everything down. He draws Pidge rolling her eyes, Hunk biting his thumb as he stares at Shay, Shiro talking to Allura, Coran grinning and twiddling his moustache, _Lance_ smiling as he holds Keith’s hand. On top of this, he draws Kolivan and Ulaz and Regris and Thace, Zarkon and Haggar, Krolia and his cosmic space wolf playing fetch on the grass. _Lance_ with closed eyes and a sculpted jaw. He keeps coming back to Lance. Before he knows it, his makeshift paper is graffitied with _Lance_ , and Krolia notices.

“Who is this? Why does he have more portraits than the others?” she asks, peering at the paper while she entices the wolf with a piece of meat.

Keith instantly turns violently red. “Mom, please stop,”

“Is he your mate?” Krolia tilts her head. “Oh. I see.”

Keith looks down at his current portrait of Lance, in which he is smiling softly. He considers the way both real Lance and fake Lance make him feel, and nods. She might be right. He looks up at her and tells her “no,”, heart racing.

\--

When Keith gets back to Voltron he does not do it without a new fanbase. Thousands of aliens across the galaxy excitedly pursue Voltron’s, and by default, _his_ attention. Keith is genuinely surprised to learn that he is among those who have fans. Pleasantly surprised.

The first alien who asks for his autograph is a small pink creature with big shiny eyes who approaches him during one of their diplomatic missions, on a planet in the far reaches of the galaxy. He isn’t sure at first if they are actually talking to him when they run over and ask for his autograph until they tap him on the back and peer at him expectantly. Looking down, he notices there is a piece of paper in their hands. They repeat the question tentatively. He takes the paper and then grins.

“Yeah, sure,” he says, and writes his name across it with the pen he always carries around, in curly letters, handing it back once he’s done. The smile that spreads across the alien’s face makes Keith brighten as he turns away.

He starts _drawing_ for the fans soon after the team discovers he can draw. It’s an accident, really. A mistake he hadn’t intended to have happened. The Castle of Lions gets destroyed so beforehand Keith has to pack everything he has. It isn’t much at all. All he brings is his notebook (found tucked under his bedsheet) and his wolf into his lion with him (and of course Krolia and Shiro, but they aren’t cargo per se). Smuggling a notebook -- an Altean one at that -- onto the lion is not an easy task. He carries it close to his chest, heart racing, on edge from the adrenaline that someone might catch him in the act and ask, and then he’d have to tell them and show them and that would be --

“Hey! What are you up to?” Lance shouts across the way, straining to push Kaltenecker up a ramp into the red lion.

Keith’s heart sinks even as he fumbles for an excuse. “Uhm, nothing,” he says weakly, looking over at Lance hesitatingly. Lance has stopped on his way up the ramp and is staring at Keith, but to Keith’s relief, he shrugs.

“Whatever, man.” he continues, pushing Kaltenecker and earning a moo in response.

Keith blows out a breath of relief at this. He starts for his lion again. That’s too close.

\--

He isn't safe on Earth, with open space as far as the eye can see and fires lit to illuminate everyone's faces. Keith has a fire going by himself, while Krolia sits with the wolf at another, Hunk, Pidge, and Lance are at another, Romelle, Coran, and Allura chat animatedly about Altea at one, and Shiro naps in the black lion. He pulls out his notebook and looks fondly over the drawings he had once done in the castle. He itches to draw again. His pen comes out of his pocket of its own accord as he flips to a blank page and starts to look around for inspiration. His eyes find Lance again almost immediately.

Lance, sitting at the fire with Pidge and Hunk next to him. He’s staring into the glow quite calmly, quietly, unlike him. But in this way, he looks beautiful, and Keith begins to move his pen over the paper as he sketches him again. It feels like coming home, like they landed on Earth and it was fine but the sense of relief didn’t click until now. He gets so caught up in it that he finishes, and stares at the drawing in his lap so deeply that Lance comes over to him and he doesn’t notice until he tilts his head to see his notebook.

“Are those drawings?” he’s asking.

Keith starts so hard that the drawing shifts. “Uhm!” He closes the notebook with a snap but it’s too late. “No!”

Lance only tilts his head more, his eyebrows narrowed. “Who were you drawing just now? It looked really good before you closed it.”

Keith clutches the notebook and looks back at the lions. “I was drawing the lions,” he lies.

“Oh. Can… I see?”

Keith stares at him. He lets out a wet chuckle. “Since when do you want to see my art?” Their “rivalry” is a good cover sometimes.

“Since now,” Lance says. He’s prying open Keith’s heart, forcing his way in. Almost deliberately.

Keith’s giving up. His grip on the notebook loosens, and he turns to the beginning, grabs a picture of Pidge concentrating on the monitors, “Wow!” Lance cries.

He’s beaming as he studies Keith’s masterpiece. “That’s great! Do you have any more in there?”

Keith knows his sketches of Lance are in the back of his book, so he gladly shows him the rest of the drawings he has tucked away in the front -- all of Hunk, Pidge, Coran, Allura, the mice, Krolia, even Romelle. Lance looks over them in silent awe, as if he’s never seen anything better in his life. At some point, Keith shuts the notebook for fear of allowing Lance to see the drawings he has of him. Lance regards him with slight disappointment.

“Don’t you have any of me?” he asks, indignant.

Keith blinks. “What?”

“Well, you did all those drawings of everyone else, and I’ve never seen a single one of me. I mean, we’ve spent enough time on the castleship together, right? Way more time than you spent with any of these guys. So shouldn’t you at least have one of me?”

The harsh blush that spreads across Keith’s face tingles on his cheeks and stings his nose. “Uhm, I mean, yeah. I think I have one or two of you in here.” he lies, and heart pounding, flips through the book, prays he doesn’t find a particularly adoring portrait of his crush. But Lance is watching as he looks through it, his beautiful brown eyes trained on the pages picking up wind. He’s looking at them in that still, quiet way Keith has portrayed him in many of his own portraits, but somehow, out of the corner of his eye, even the peripheral view of Lance like this is more beautiful than anything Keith has ever depicted before. If only he knew how many sketches Keith actually has of him, the light he sees Lance in, the light blue quintessence field built up around him that always comes through better when he smiles. Red-faced, Keith glimpses Lance in his sketchbook and opens to a random drawing, hoping it isn’t too much.

It’s one of Lance standing on the main deck of the castleship, staring off at the galaxy around them. It’s incredibly detailed but also subtle, so it’s perfect. Lance gazes at it for a moment before putting on an exaggerated frown.

“Excuse you, I look way better than that,” he complains, but Keith chuckles because he knows it’s probably untrue. He’d studied Lance extensively for this particular set of sketches -- strictly for research purposes, of course. “Seriously, dude,” Lance continues, his frown breaking at Keith’s laughter, “everyone should know about these. They’re like, really good. Especially that one of me. How long did it take you?”

Keith stares pointedly at the fire. “Erm. Not long.”

That’s a bold lie. After getting the rough sketch out, Keith had spent at least three more hours on the sketch in his bedroom.

Suddenly Lance’s eyes light up and he gasps. “Hey, you should draw for the fans!”

Keith frowns. “Why would I do that?”

“Do you know how amazing it would be to get an authentic drawing from the Red Paladin as well as autographs from the others? Come on, we’re already legends! Imagine if they knew you could draw, too! You could do little mini versions of the rest of us for them!”

Keith pauses. On the one hand, he’s right. It would boost popularity considerably, and therefore planets would be more willing to join Voltron against the Galra. On the other hand, Keith doesn’t know what exposing his drawing talent would do to him. It’s been out of the way so long that he doesn’t know how to feel about presenting it to people. Besides, he still isn’t used to dealing with them in the first place.

“Fine. The next time someone asks for an autograph, I’ll give them a picture.” he blurts.

That’s how he ends up drawing for the fans.

Funnily enough, the first is of Lance.

\--

Keith accidentally confesses his crush to Lance later on, due completely to hubris. In fact, no words come out of Keith’s mouth at all. It’s all because of that notebook.

Lance’s self-esteem suffers a major blow with the whole Allura/Lotor ordeal, causing certain suppressed feelings to resurface and a cataclysm to form in Lance’s soul. He goes looking for Keith’s notebook in his lion, not expecting its mouth to open and accept him. They’re still landed on Earth at this point, not yet having found their families again. It’s during their downtime that Lance sneaks on board the Black Lion.

“Whoa, that’s weird,” Lance mutters as he’s boarding, hovering with his jetpack above the ramp. He gets inside the machine within moments and begins to search immediately for the item in question. “Now where does Keith hide his stuff?” he murmurs to himself, hovering over the floor of the ship. Keith’s lion isn’t nearly as cluttered as Lance’s is. By comparison, Keith’s barely has any boxes -- Lance figures he only brought his mother and his space wolf with him to Earth. It makes Lance think of when he visited Keith in his dorm seeking advice. He’d briefly glimpsed a room full of nothing, only a bed, and a sheet, unlike his own room, and Pidge’s room, full of collected clutter. He lets himself experience a sadness for Keith before shaking his head and turning to find the notebook.

It doesn’t take long to find it -- it isn’t disguised or hidden or anything. It’s just resting on its side, tucked away but easily spotted.

Lance snatches it up into his hands with glee and begins to thumb through it right away. The beginning is just as Keith had shown him -- sketches of Pidge, Hunk, Allura, Coran, Shiro… then as he gets further into it, the Blades and his wolf, his mother, but still nothing of Lance. He sighs, his movements growing more erratic as he moves through the pages. “C’mon, there must be something of me in here!” he grumbles and rubs at his temples with one hand while the other continues his search.

But then _there’s a noise outside the lion._

Lance starts in alarm, closing the book on his finger as he peers out the visor. It’s Keith, boarding with the wolf. Lance looks down at the book and instantly panics -- if Keith comes onto his lion and sees Lance inside of it, reading his personal notebook, he’ll be dead. But he can’t bring himself to stop reading. He opens it again, convinced he has time.

And then he finds himself.

The first sketch of him is extremely detailed. Like the one Keith had shown him, it’s him standing on the main deck of the castleship, watching the galaxy go by. Lance’s eyes shine. Keith could never have known that during those moments, he was always thinking about his family, wishing he could be back on Earth. Yet, somehow, he’s captured his expression perfectly. It’s like a picture.

He turns the page and there’s another portrait of him, surrounded by small pencil stars. This one is only a bust -- he’s smiling, eyes fond and sparkling. It’s beautiful. He can’t help but wonder why Keith didn’t show this to him. Lance continues to thumb through the book, only to realize the whole rest of it is filled with similar portraits. There’s more of him than there is of anyone else. His self-esteem skyrockets as his grin spreads across his face.

And then Keith comes into the lion and catches him. “Lance?” Confusion flits across his features as he regards the Red Paladin hovering above his lion’s floor. The wolf tilts its head at the same time. “How did you get in here?”

Lance shrugs. “I really have no idea.” He tries to hide the notebook behind his back -- all too late, because Keith’s gaze shifts downward and catches the movement.

“Why are you hiding my notebook behind your back?” he asks, raising an eyebrow. But then his face goes pale. “Wait. You didn’t-”

Lance hesitates before slowly revealing the book. “You have more drawings of me? Why didn’t you show them to me?”

In one swift motion, Keith swipes the book back. His face has now gone red, and he sputters out the next words, “Why were you looking through it? That’s my private journal!”

“I was curious! Because I thought you had more pictures of everyone else than you did of me!” Lance returns. His eyes narrow in irritation.

“Why would you care?” Keith demands. He’s clutching the book even tighter in his grip now, knuckles turning white. In the confrontation, he’s moved close to Lance’s face. Lance can practically feel steam rising off of him. Lance’s gaze shifts down to the notebook.

“Your drawings are insanely good,” he says, looking back up at Keith. “And you actually have more of me than you do of anyone else. I guess I was just jealous.”

“Why were you jealous?” Keith asks softly. His eyes are still narrowed but they are softer now somehow, more vulnerable. Lance can’t bring himself to reply, only because he doesn't really know the answer.

He turns to flee the lion and spare himself any more embarrassment, but then Keith catches ahold of his arm and tugs. Lance looks back.

“Do you want to know why I have so many drawings of you?” he asks tentatively.

Lance pulls his arm back. “Because you’re an artist, so you recognize art?” he tries.

“Because… because _I like you_. Alright?” Keith is sputtering, bright red. Lance’s eyes widen.

“You like me, or you _like_ me?”

“How about I just tell you that you have the most beautiful features I’ve ever seen?” Keith says. He’s looking up at Lance now, his gaze unreadable. “When I draw you, it feels like coming home. I know it’s cheesy, but something about you screams comforting for me. That’s why.”

Lance stares. “Keith, I--”

But then Keith looks down at the floor. “Get out of my lion.”

And Lance leaves, awed and confused.

\--

Keith is confronted by Lance a little bit before they’re all supposed to split up to go meet with their families. He’s standing with Krolia, Shiro, and the space wolf, all with no other family and a plan to stay in their depressingly small shack Keith recently discovered he was born into. Keith sees Lance right away. He’s walking -- pretty solemnly. Keith’s cheeks burn with shame as he remembers what he said the other day. He looks back at Krolia and Shiro and finds they’re chatting about something he has no interest in. Shiro’s probably asking Krolia about her experience with the Blades. He turns away from them then and approaches Lance with the wolf.

“Look. I’m sorry about what I said the other day,” he starts. “I--”

“Be quiet and let me talk,” Lance replies harshly. “I’ve been thinking about that. And I kinda, sorta realized I might like you back? Besides, dating you would come with _so_ many perks. Like I would be a furry, you could draw for me all the time, we could--”

Keith is smiling. “What was that first thing you said?”

Lance frowns, blushing. “Never mind. Didn’t you hear anything else I said?”

“You like me? Like, this isn’t a joke?” Keith feels his heart rate pick up. Suddenly it’s too silent - he turns and sees Krolia and Shiro are watching the exchange intently, grinning like idiots. It proves too cringey for Keith to witness too long so he looks back at Lance.

“Family hanging over your shoulder? Yeah, I know how that feels.” Lance sympathizes.

Keith smiles, only because he’s never been able to say he relates to this before. “Yeah,” he agrees, “but you still didn’t answer my question.”

Lance raises an eyebrow. “Did you really want me to repeat it?”

Something comes over Keith then, an urge. The same urge that comes over him whenever he’s in battle, about to make a rash decision without having thought twice. But his mother and the man he considers a brother are standing behind, watching him, so he can’t do anything here. Because it’s driving him crazy, he grabs at Lance’s arm and tugs, motions toward his lion as a means of somewhere more private. Lance gets the idea.

“Hey, guys,” Keith calls out behind him exaggeratedly, “I’m going to go check my lion’s inventory with Lance; I’ll be right back.”

He looks over just enough to see Krolia and Shiro’s matching expressions of barely-contained glee but also “I’m-not-buying-it” melded into one. It’s something only two of the three who had a hand in raising him can express, and he recognizes it immediately from many times throughout his childhood with Shiro.

“Alright, have fun,” Krolia calls back, her eyebrow raised like a classic mom. She’s really getting back into this role.

“Don’t be too long,” Shiro reminds him, “We still have to get back to the home.” Keith nods, takes this as his cue to leave.

Lance follows him behind the lion and just has time to get some words out that Keith honestly doesn’t hear before he’s being pushed up against the harsh metal back of the lion as their lips are pushed together. Feeling the predictable moist softness of Lance’s lips, just as Keith had always thought they’d feel, he allows his eyes to shut, eyelashes fluttering. His fists are curled against Lance’s chest, smouldering like his eyes behind his closed lids -- he’s stuck, waiting for Lance to reciprocate but perfectly happy with the way he’s feeling. It doesn’t take long for the sharpshooter to work his magic.

Within ticks, his hands leap into Keith’s mullet and pull him closer, gets carried away. He’s grinning, Keith realizes. He’s _happy_.

Of course, it becomes heated after that -- breathing heavier, they can’t get close enough and then their tongues are melded together and Keith’s sweating under his hair because of just how amazing and nervous this makes him feel. Lance is both the gorgeous guy in his sketches and a teenager who needs love and _craves_ it, just like him. Keith gets it at this moment, with Lance under him, feels closer to him than ever. He doesn’t want to part from him.

His eyes open and Lance looks more beautiful at that moment than any of his drawings could have predicted. It takes Keith’s breath away.

The sun sets behind Lance’s ears and Keith has to surge forwards to kiss him again.


	2. Winged Love...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> officially crack

The legend of Mothman has always fascinated Keith. 

From the time he was little, one of his only remaining memories of his father was of the story of Mothman. Keith can remember being told about how Mothman has been spotted many times in many different areas around the world, with his magnificent wings and fearsome fangs. Rather than be scared of the mythical creature, Keith had garnered a sort of manifested love and adoration for him. In fact, one of his earliest -- and worst -- drawings had been of the dark, shadowy beast. He’d shown it to Shiro and still remembers the expression he’d received in return to this day. Now he recognizes it as a mixture of agony, confusion, and terror -- but at the time, because of his childish naivety and Shiro’s praise, he’d taken it as encouragement to continue drawing. 

Having a moment alone, Keith chuckles and pulls out his notebook and pen. His interpretation of Mothman is still fresh in his memory -- as he remembers drawing him all the time when he was younger, his pen moves naturally with the familiar rigid lines of the creature. His grin grows bigger across his face and Mothman comes together, his wings rising and his shadow falling across the page, his eyes glowing -- he comes alive under Keith’s hands. 

The finished product bears little resemblance to the figure he had done as a child, although this version of Mothman is slightly more realistic and believable. 

Truly, Mothman was Keith’s first love.


	3. Rolo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Rolo was pretty evil, but he was also pretty hot and Keith def liked him.

Even after the betrayal of Rolo and the team's belittling rescue of both him and his lady friend Nyma, Keith is still attracted to him. 

He doesn’t feel for Rolo what he feels for Lance, not to that degree. For Rolo there is a simple attraction -- he had merely been someone whose muscles Keith had admired in a time when Lance had not returned his affections. Keith only drew Rolo once, but in this one sketch, he had poured some sort of pining. Keith gazes over the sketch now, remembers the way his pen had flown across the page so delicately, as if he would mess it all up with one swipe. Everything about it was done so carefully -- the lines in Rolo’s smile, the tape wrapped around his middle, dyed a pale beige from months in the sun (this part, he had smudged over as he never had any colours) and finally, Rolo’s eyes, which reflect a Lance-esque shine that Keith is now sure in no way resembles Rolo’s actual eyes. 

In any case, Rolo is now burned into Keith’s notebook in permanent pen ink, a reminder of a time when he pined for Lance and knew he couldn’t have him and so diverted his attention to someone he’d thought was worth the time. In his mind. 

Really, he and Rolo would never have worked out anyway. He’s glad now he didn’t pursue anything with him, had just admired him from afar.


	4. Red

Although Blue is the first lion Keith draws, Red is the first one he draws with passion. 

Back in his shack, sketches of Blue adorn his bulletin board -- lacking in intricacy or detail. They display the lion in its simplest, most geometric form -- sharp, stiff lines and angles thrown together to create a hurried representation of what had given him visions in the desert. 

Then he’d found Red aboard the Galra ship. 

It had taken a while to bond with Red, as he had been warned it would, but once they were bonded it was hard to keep away from the lion. Red was the ultimate companion -- loyal, beautiful, powerful, fast, everything Keith would want. He had come to Keith’s rescue more times than he could count while he’d been his paladin, and during that time Keith had felt the love the lion had for him. 

He’d started to draw Red right away. He has about five pages of drawings dedicated to the lion, detailed and soft -- in some, he’d managed to capture the glint in Red’s eye. 

Now, though he is the Black Paladin, Red still bears an important place in his heart and notebook. 

His first lion.


	5. Hippos!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this is a bonus chapter I just thought of. Y'all know our boy would draw his favourite animal everywhere.

Keith _loves_ hippos.

He doesn’t know why, or how -- he only knows _when_ he first came to love them. 

He was only little -- maybe only four or five -- and his father had one of those giant books of animals around the house. To this day Keith has no idea what purpose it could possibly serve, as the only animals they had gotten around the farm had been lizards and other desert-dwellers. Still, one page in the book is worn and torn and marked and  _loved_ way more than any of the others. The hippo page. 

It's page 293, permanently rooted in Keith's brain even now. He still remembers flipping to that page every day, eyes wide with excitement as he used to take in the majestic, round-bellied hippopotamuses depicted on that one sweet page. The fun facts, he's had memorised forever, and now they're rattling around somewhere in the back of his mind.

_Did you know?_

Hippopotamus  _comes from the Ancient Greek, "river horse"._

_Female hippos are called cows!_

_Hippos don't really sweat blood; that's just an oily substance they secrete to protect themselves from the sun!_

Keith rolls his eyes now going over the old facts, stumbling upon them like one might stumble upon an old memento from childhood. 

But he'd be lying if he said he hasn't dedicated a page or two to his favourite animals. 

They sit mostly at the front of his notebook, but they're there -- poking their heads out of water or walking along shores or peering at him with shining eyes and skin. Thinking about it, Keith absently doodles a hippo in the corner of the page he's currently on. 

He looks down and immediately smiles. It's right over top of the sketch he's just done of Lance.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been writing so much lately, I can't stop!
> 
> lol, hope this was enjoyed and I love the positive attention my other works have gotten, thank you guys so much in advance! 
> 
> Also, I've forgotten to include some descriptions of some others that Keith might have drawn, so be on the lookout for updates soon! I'll give you a hint: two of these characters, Keith def had a crush on at some point. And I don't mean Lance.


End file.
